Page:A Treatise on the Culture of the Vine and, and the Art of Making Wine.pdf/203

 It may be laid down as a principle, that, in cold climates, in humid soils, and when a rainy season has preceded the vintage, the grape contains more water and leaven than is requisite for the decomposition of the sugar formed in the fruit. In all these cases, the fermentation, when abandoned to itself, produces a wine with little spirit, weak, and diluted, and very subject to pass to acidity, or turn to ropiness, in consequence of the excess of leaven remaining, after the entire decomposition of the sugar.

These defects may be corrected or prevented:

1st, By pouring into the vat a portion of the must, which has been concentrated to one-third, or one-fourth, by boiling in a copper cauldron. The mixture in the vat should be agitated, till it is equally diffused, but care should be taken, not to thicken it to excess, for then the leaven is coagulated, and loses its power of promoting fermentation.

2d, By dissolving pounded or brown sugar in the must, in proportion as it is thinner than the due degree of consistence. Thus, if the must, expressed from grapes not perfectly ripe, marks the eighth degree of Baumé, while in years of perfect maturity, it reaches ten and a half, a quantity of sugar may be dissolved by heat in a cauldron of the must, and mixed in the vat, till the whole at-